The Education of Achilles

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The young Achilles, hero of Greek mythology, rides on the back of the centaur Chiron in this sketch for the library of the Palais Bourbon. The pair bound away from the viewer as Chiron instructs Achilles in the art of the hunt. The heavily reworked contour lines show Delacroix’s search for the desired form. The artist’s indication of several possible positions for the centaur’s legs contributes to the sense of movement in the drawing.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art